It took until the last day of regular season, but the Chippewa River Baseball League (CRBL) playoffs are finalized. The Eau Claire Bears defeated the Chippewa Falls LumberJacks 7-2 in the final game of their season to secure the #4 playoff spot. For the second straight year, the Tilden Tigers garnered the #1 seed and the Osseo Merchants got the #2 seed. The Eau Claire Cavaliers round out the playoff field as the #3 seed.
See playoff bracket below for pairings, dates, times and locations.
| Wildcard Wednesday | Championship Saturday |
|---|---|
| Tilden Tigers | |
August 2, 2023  5-3  Casper Park | |
| Tilden Tigers | |
August 5, 2023 1-2  Casper Park | |
| Eau Claire Bears | |
| Osseo Merchants | |
August 2, 2023 1-0  Jon Soiney Memorial Field | |
| Osseo Merchants | |
| Eau Claire Cavaliers |
| Wildcard Wednesday | Championship Saturday | Wildcard Wednesday |
|---|---|---|
| Tilden Tigers | Osseo Merchants | |
August 2, 2023 5-3 Casper Park | Tilden Tigers | August 2, 2023 1-0 Jon Soiney Memorial Field |
August 5, 2023 1-2 Casper Park | ||
| Osseo Merchants | ||
| Eau Claire Bears | Eau Claire Cavaliers |
- This will be Tilden’s league record 39th appearance in the CRBL championship game.
- Osseo will be making its 7th showing in the title bout.
- Tilden has won a league record 19 league championships, including the last two. That marked the first time Tilden has won back-to-back CRBL titles since winning three in a row in 1977, 1978, and 1979.
- In 2022, the Tigers beat Osseo, 12 to 5 at Casper Park in Chippewa Falls. In 2021, Tilden beat the Chippewa Falls LumberJacks 10 to 3, also at Casper Park.
- The next closest franchise is the Chippewa Falls Lumberjacks with 7 CRBL crowns.
- Osseo has won four CRBL crowns, doing so consecutively in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019.
- Jordan Steinmetz of Tilden was named MVP of last year’s contest.
- CRBL Hall of Famer Shane Dutton is the only player to win multiple championship game MVP awards, doing so for Augusta in 1998 and 1999. The award has been given annually since 1998.
- The first championship contest was actually a series, taking place in 1928 when the Eagleton Eagletons beat Eau Claire Union 2 games to 0.
- Including 2023, this is the 95th season of play in CRBL history. Within that time frame, there have been 11 championship series. This Saturday marks the 60th championship game.
- The title was Osseo’s 5th overall and first since 2019 when they beat Tilden 12-6 at Osseo.
- Osseo’s Luke Eide was named game MVP. Luke was the starting and winning pitcher: 7.1 ip, 5 h, 1 r, 1 er, 0 bb, 5 k.